Tonight's Poet Corner: The Friends We Make

The Friends We Make
by Belinda Roddie

The friends we make
could ultimately destroy us
from the inside, tearing
away skin to reveal bone,
brittle and far from white.

Or the friends we make
could rebuild us from
the previous wreckage,
mending flesh with grafts
and stickers and tattoos,
even though we'll never look the same.

We can share drinks and try to
avoid salt along the rim. And now
you and I smile along the pier,
cracking jokes loudly enough to
disturb the sleeping bridge, concrete
stimulating our feet long enough

to hold us upright before sunset.
We laugh at Neptune's daughter as
she holds a pelican we claim to
have been named for her cinephilia
(Película seemed appropriate
for the discourse). We remember

old songs from nearly a decade ago,
songs I may or may not have written,
songs you may or may not have
helped me write. We slay the gas station
dragon for cold brew and peanut butter
and chocolate. We find adventure

in the smallest of personal systems.
The true friends we make are bold
enough to rend what must be rent,
to mend what must be mended,
and the unintoxicated wisdom
to understand the difference.